Pierre-Alexandre Wille Paris 1748 - after 1821

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Description

Pierre-Alexandre Wille
recto: elizabeth cazotte rescues her father from the death sentence at the prison of l'abbaye, 23 september 1792; verso: a prisoner brought before a tribunal in the prison of l'abbaye
black chalk and stumping (recto); black chalk (verso); the sheet extended by the artist at the right and a section of the composition to the left deftly inserted by the artist on another piece of paper

Catalogue Note

The drawing comes with an old note written in pen and ink describing the subject of the drawing: 2&3 Septemb. 1792. massacre du Prison dans/paris/ Wille fils a recueilli (de Visu) les deux principales/scènes qui se sont passés à la prison del'Abbaïe./Dans la Cour interieure siégeoit l'espèce de tribunal;/devant lequel paroissoit chaque détenu:..sur/le revers de cette feuille, rendue au simple trait./Quand le détenu devoit être sacrificié On le poussoit/hors la prison, aux cris: à la Force! à ce signal/les Tireurs agissoient./Wille a substitué à cet horrible spectacle/l'acte de dévouement de M^elle Cazotte qui parvint/à arracher son père, vieillard de 80 (crossed out in pencil and 72 inserted) ans, à la/rage des Assassins./voir Beaulieu Essais sur la revolution/francaise.

Jacques Cazotte (1719-1792) was a successful writer, particularly of oriental tales and other romances. His most famous work is Le Diable Amoureux, published in 1772. In August 1792, he fell foul of the Revolutionary authorities and was sentenced to death. His daughter, Elisabeth, with great courage succeeding in saving him, as shown in this drawing, but only briefly as he was executed two days later. Cazotte is mentioned by Thomas Carlyle in his history of the French Revolution. In September 1792, the so-called September Massacres took place in 9 Parisian prisons and as many as 1400 prisoners were killed on suspicion of being counter-revolutionaries. The Monarchy was abolished and a Republic declared on 22 September.

Wille's career as a Revolutionary is discussed by Karl Maison in 'Pierre-Alexandre Wille and the French Revolution', Master Drawings, vol. X, no. 1, pp. 34-35. He made several drawings of important figures such as Danton and Charlotte Corday, done in 1794 and 1793 respectively. His attitude towards the tribunals represented here is not clear, but perhaps the drama of a daughter's courage inspired him, even if his sympathies were revolutionary.

The incident was clearly a famous one as a later painting of the subject by Claude-Noel Thévenin, signed and dated 1834, is in the collection of the Château de Versailles (inv. no. MV7061, see Musée National du Château de Versailles, Les Peintures, Paris 1995, vol. II, p. 857, cat. no. 4845, reproduced).